My children, 14 and 5, experience the emotional abuse, but I can do nothing to stop her because I have to wait for court. 11 months and we're still going. The mediation centre told me that they don't do mediation for abuse, they send it straight to court, but they are making me do it. I questioned this, and she told me she thought it might help. That makes no sense, if I was a woman, this decision would not have even been considered. It would have been straight to court.

I experienced emotional abuse for the most part. She is a pastor of a church, and a real charming person in public. Behind closed doors, so even my kids didn't really see it, she was an abusive person. My children were trained to be part of the abuse - ignoring me, challenging my authority as a parent, made to feel afraid of me. I will keep working on this part... with strong boundaries, patience and courage, I hope one day they realise the error of this.

The abuse started about two years into the relationship. She king hit me from behind, I pushed her as she had trapped me in a room, and scratched her. She told everyone I abused her.

She constantly threatened me in all manner of ways - locking me out of the house, locking me in rooms, sitting on me, screaming in my face, pushing me, shoving me, hitting me, holding me against walls. All the while, everyone believed her story. She has hit me twice in front of our daughter, she cheated on me and blamed me. I had post traumatic stress disorder from a client trying to kill me, and she tried to tell me I was mean to her whilst unwell and forgot the times I did it, no I didn't.

She cheated on me again. She threatened to kill herself. She takes my children away when I don't agree with her, or believe her stories. She is today throwing away all my belongings because I 'forfeited' them, whatever that means. The big issue with her is lying and severe emotional abuse. "I love you, but you don't love me enough, I love you, but you don't do this for me, I'm angry because you made me angry, I hit because you made me hit you, I hurt you and said those things cause you made me angry." Or she just lies, and says she didn't do it.

I have been out of the relationship for eleven months, but I am still not free. She has taken everything from me - my car (she had her own), my children, my belongings, my friends and then she tried my family. She still sends me abusive messages most days. She constantly tells me what is wrong with me. She makes excuses for me to not see my kids.

The only times I did anything back - the time I mentioned earlier - once when she was screaming at me and telling me I was crazy over and over again whilst being about five centimetres from my face and trapping me on the lounge, so I pushed her to get away after half an hour of this abuse. I sat on her to take pills she was trying to swallow to kill herself and I smashed a guitar in anger once, not at her, just in general. I never hit her, or harmed her. When I told her I would call the police, she would laugh at me and tell me they would arrest me (just as my father used to say to me).

She is very good at waiting until no-one can hear her, not even my children see most of it. I told two friends in the whole time we were together - one guessed because I was covered in bruises on my body, and the other person I just told. No one said or did anything. People still 11 months later bad-mouth me based on her lies and deceipt. Her story changes about what is wrong with me all the time - usually it involves me having borderline personality disorder, or abusing her, or hurting my children. None of which is true, but she continues to perpetuate it.

The sad thing is - I can see how she could be good, but she just isn't. I had to quit a job for a fake illness - she said she was having seizures, they were fake. The hospital told me. She told me she was raped - it was a lie, she wasn't. She told me she didn't have sex but she got pregnant, she lied. I could go on.... But, ya know, ultimately, I don't want to bitch about her.

I just want to be free of her abuse. Some days it feels endless, like I will never know peace again. I will never experience joy without the anxiety of what will she do next. I will never be safe.

Everytime I hear my phone ring, I see an email, I hear a voice, I see certain triggers... I collapse in a heap on the floor, I panic, I feel my hands shake, my heart beats at a pace not natural, I begin to shallow breathe, my eyes dart rapidly, and I cannot focus on a thing. Sometimes, no, often, I am suicidal.

My head hurts a lot of the time from the stress of worrying about what will happen next, what abuse can possibly happen now, she has done everything she possibly can to hurt me, and then she finds one more way to attack...

Will I ever be free, will I ever not have this fear?

Article originally appeared on One in Three Campaign (http://www.oneinthree.com.au/).